As I’m typing this, a very loud train is rumbling by in the background. That makes it two straight parks with trains that run nearby.

Before the TinCaps arrived here in Clinton, though, they took two of three from the Kane County Cougars. Although the Cougars have the league’s most prolific offense, they’ve also committed the league’s most errors. Those two don’t always mix well. Fort Wayne dropped game one of the series, but outscored Kane County 19-3 over the last two games. The TinCaps have now won back-to-back games for the first time all year and that was also their first series victory in five tries.

Frank Garces came out throwing strikes on Saturday and turned in easily the best starting pitching performance we’ve seen all year. In eight innings, he allowed just two runs and four hits. Two of the hits and both of the runs happened to score in the eighth, by the way. The lefty also retired stretches of six, and eight, consecutive batters during his outing.

Take a listen to today’s TinCaps Report Podcast to hear the highlights of yesterday’s action:

IF YOU’VE NEVER LISTENED TO THE BLACK KEYS, YOU’RE MISSING OUT

That basically sums up my entire thought process on what I needed to say here. However, if you’d like more information, please, I implore you to watch this profile that CBS Sunday Morningdid on the two-man group from Akron, Ohio. The Black Keys are a stellar rock group, and as the story says, if you haven’t heard of them, you’ve surely heard their music, as it’s been used in over 300 commercials and movies.

If you’ve ever got any musical suggestions for the blog, or for long bus rides (we may or may not have a few this season), please do share!

A TAXONOMY OF OFFICE CHAIRS

Everyone’s had an office chair that they’ve strongly disliked. Whether you’ve had one you love is a different story. But we’ve all got an office chair story, that’s for sure. Here’s my broadcast throne for this three-game set:

I dub thee Blue Thunder.

I remember when, the summer after high school, I interned for the city court in my hometown. I, being the intern, got the lowliest of office chairs. Not only did it have several mysterious and inexplicable stains on it, but the armrest part (you know, that’s supposed to be soft and cushy?) looked like it had been gnawed away by a hungry rabbit. I do not miss that chair.

Author Jonathan Olivares has written “A Taxonomy of Office Chairs” which serves as a thorough documentation of office chairs throughout the years. The Los Angeles Review of Books did what they do…and reviewed the book.

“The chair also came to confer and confirm hierarchy. After all, the workplace conditions us to covet minor status symbols: an additional window, a few more cubic feet of space, a personal stapler; why not an ornate, hand-carved headrest (or, if you worked at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, a dodecagon base)? In the 1950s and ’60s, the distinctions between rank found blunt expression in chair design, naming and price point; Knoll, for example, produced “Executive,” “Advanced Management,” and “Basic Operational” chairs in the late 1970s. Recall the archetypal scenes where the boss, back to the door, protected by an exaggerated, double-spine headrest, slowly swivels around to meet the eyes of his waiting subordinate, impotent in a stationary four-legger.”

I find this to be a fascinatingly exhaustive review of an object that can appear so mundane, but when you think about it–we spend nearly33% of our time in our office chair.

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